


Constellations

by Yavemiel



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Astronomy, Bittersweet, Character Study, Inspired by Art, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yavemiel/pseuds/Yavemiel
Summary: Jack's life is on a cosmic timescale, and sometimes, the stars are the only company he has.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 22
Kudos: 34





	Constellations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aellesiym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aellesiym/gifts), [Beleriandings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/gifts).



> This was inspired by an absolutely stunning piece of art done by aellesiym on Tumblr, which can be found here: https://aellesiym.tumblr.com/post/624194269989732352/we-have-calcium-in-our-bones-iron-in-our-veins I encourage everyone to go and look at it because it's amazing! That in turn was inspired by a gorgeous poem from Nikita Gill, which was introduced to us by beleriandings:
> 
> 'We have calcium in our bones,  
> iron in our veins,  
> carbon in our souls,  
> and nitrogen in our brains.  
> 93 percent stardust,  
> with souls made of flames,  
> we are all just stars that have people names.'
> 
> Huge thanks to princessoftheworlds for editing it for me, hope you enjoy!

It starts with Rose.

(He finds out later of course that she’s not actually dead, alive in a different dimension, but at that point, the deed is done, and anyway, he’s never going to see her again.)

He thinks of it on a whim, standing on the rooftop of the Millennium Centre, gulping great lungfuls of air like he’s just revived, but really, it’s just a little part of him that’s died, the part that danced with Rose in 1941, the part that belongs to her smile and her wonder at the universe and her belief that Jack is a good person, worth bringing back from the dead even. That part of him dies the instant he reads Rose’s name on the list of the dead and missing from Canary Wharf.

He stumbles out of the Hub, ignoring Suzie’s angry yell for him to ‘come back and help us with this clusterfuck, goddamn it, Harkness,’ and makes his way up to the roof on some sort of blind instinct; now, he’s here, staring at the sky like it somehow has the answers. But all the sky has is stars, clearly visible on an unusually cloudless night in Cardiff, and Alpha Andromedae is winking at him through his tears. He looks at it and for some reason, it makes him think of Rose. 

From then on, whenever he stands and gazes at the stars, his eyes seek it out, and he thinks of her and her smile; it becomes a little easier, to think that she’s up there looking down on him and smiling.

Suzie is next, and he’s furious, furious with himself that he didn’t see her gradual descent into madness and murder, but he loved her the same way he loves everyone on his team, boundlessly and endlessly. He looks up at the sky and choses her a star despite everything, something in the Cassiopeia constellation, and after that she’s there in the night, looking down on him too.

It’s a thing, then, a proper thing, so one night after Suzie’s second death, he sits out and thinks back over the last hundred years, picking out the people he wants to remember and fixing them in the sky, Estelle and Alex and Lucia, the people who stick, the people who mean something.

Owen gets shot, and all Jack can think is ‘No.' He refuses to look up, doesn’t so much as glance at the sky until he’s found the second gauntlet and made sure that Owen doesn’t belong to the stars yet.

But you can only delay the inevitable so long, and it seems like mere moments, a heartbeat, a blink until he’s sobbing over Tosh’s body in the morgue, sliding the drawer holding Gray’s frozen body shut, pinning one of Owen’s stupid badges to the inner lining of his coat, where no one but Ianto will find it. He doesn’t comment, just carefully removes it whenever the coat needs cleaning and just as carefully pins it back before he returns it to Jack. Jack appreciates (loves) that about Ianto, that he understands without Jack having to say the words.

Their deaths cut deep, deeper than anything has in a while, and he avoids the roof for a while, pretending the stars don’t exist. He would have gotten there eventually, he’s sure, but it’s Ianto who nudges him into it.

“You don’t go up to the roof any more,” he says one night, lying against Jack’s chest as the sweat cools on their skin.

“You knew about that?” he says, though he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised, and Ianto’s fond snort confirms it.

“You’re not as subtle as you like to think, Jack.” He pulls back slightly, lifting his head from Jack’s chest so that he can look him in the eye. “I’m not sure exactly what it is you do up there, but Jack...I can tell that you need it. You’re fidgety, you’re distracted, you got killed three times last night, and I know you should have avoided at least two of them.”

“Should not,” Jack says sulkily, but Ianto ignores him.

“The skies will be clear tomorrow night,” he says.

Jack sighs, and Ianto gives him a knowing look.

“Just think about it, that’s all I’m saying,” he says, and he puts his head back down on Jack’s chest, his breaths evening out into sleep. Jack strokes his hair and thinks that maybe, just maybe, Ianto has a point.

Ianto is right of course, and Jack feels better, more settled with Tosh and Owen looking down at him as they chase Weevils through the streets. Gray is there too, because there may be life in his frozen body, but Jack doesn’t fool himself into thinking that the little brother he last saw both thousands of years ago and thousands of years into the future is ever coming back. Ianto undoubtedly notices, but he says nothing, just gives Jack the good biscuits and a searing kiss with his coffee the next morning, and Jack loves him, loves him, loves him. 

It can’t last of course. Jack is constant, and Ianto is...not.

(“A thousand years time, you won’t remember me,” Ianto says, and Jack blinks back tears and thinks of Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s sky, and says, “Yes, I will. I promise. I will.”)

He runs, as fast and hard as he can, but never so far that he can’t see the stars that are his, and they watch him back; sometimes their gaze is the only thing stopping him from truly testing his immortality and pitching himself into the heart of a sun.

And slowly, so slowly, it gets if not better, then bearable. He can think again, without the all-consuming grief that blinded him for a time, and if he occasionally takes a trip to see the Dog Star up close and talk to it for a little while, well, that’s between him and the star and his ship and no one else.

So it goes, on and on, and so Jack goes, on and on, no choice in the matter and gradually, his constellations grow. Gwen, his North Star, and Martha Jones, twinkling at him from Orion, and Alice glaring at him from Ursa Major, Stephen by her side and on and on and on until he is the Face of Boe, and there is nowhere in the sky where he is not among friends and family. 

He’s tired now, so tired, he just wants to rest, but he has one more thing he must do, one more tale that Martha told him, shining on brightly still, of how the Face of Boe saves a whole planet by creating a traffic jam of all things, and the part of him that’s still Jack laughs at the thought. He’s nearly there now though, the Doctor there again, chattering away at light speed as he does. He was never part of Jack’s night sky because the Doctor is the one being that will outlive him, outlast him by flitting around in time, never tied to a linear stream.

The power fails, and he closes his eyes. This is it, his time. He pushes everything he has, everything he is towards the computer: the lights go back on and he’s done. Finally. Done.

The Doctor is still there, still talking as Jack gives him that final message that will take the Doctor (and himself, isn’t that funny to think) to the very end of the universe itself. He feels himself slipping away, the life that the TARDIS gave him all those years ago finally running out, and she’s there too, his beautiful Martha Jones, young and happy and with so many years ahead of her, and this, he thinks, this is not a bad way to die.

He closes his eyes and surrenders to the stars, and they welcome him home.

_-fin-_

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! If you did, feel free to come and yell at me in the comments about it! :)


End file.
